Suffolk Journal
April 2006

 

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Scarier than the bird flu

Daniel Johnson
Issue date: 4/5/06 Section: Arts

With a title like “Poultrygeist” one might expect a parody of the classic horror flick “Poltergeist,” but aside from nods to the thriller such as the misuse of an Indian burial ground, the basis of “Poultrygeist” is very different.

In recent years, the fast food industry has been exposed by such works as Eric Schlosser’s “Fast Food Nation” and Morgan Spurlock’s film “Super Size Me” for neglecting human health in favor of better business. These non-fiction projects have uncovered revealing facts about the production and effects of fast food, such as what happens to the body when you only eat McDonalds for a month. However, since they are non-fiction accounts they lack a linear story that may appeal to the more story-oriented thinker.

To fill this void, Troma Entertainment has recently completed production on “Poultrygeist,” a horror movie detailing the nightmare of fast food.

Despite being a work of fiction, the movie is far from being detached from reality as the film’s director, Lloyd Kaufman, explains, “‘Poultrygeist’ was inspired not by radiation, not by…toxic chemical waste…[it] was inspired by the fact that McDonalds put a store…right next to the Troma building and I had to go down to the basement of the Troma building and fight off these rats the size of kielbasas and the doodie, the crap, the babies and the nest, it was like a rat Poconos Mountains.”

Though based on a realistic scenario, the film’s plot still has enough out-of-the-ordinary twists to defy predictability. As opposed to attacking any one company, the fictitious American Chicken Bunker fills the early antagonist role by building a restaurant on top of an Indian burial ground, outraging protesters in the process. The horror aspect of the film quickly kicks in, and before long ACB’s new location is taken into possession by the previous inhabitants of the burial grounds.

“Poultrygeist” Actress Kate Graham described the coordination of plot and entertainment of the movie during a phone interview, “The plot is really interesting, I mean it’s largely autobiographical by the writer with also some political underpinnings,” and continued, “it’s a pretty good combination of good fun [and a] meaningful message.”

In addition to the plot of the film, special effects fans will not be disappointed as Jason Yachanin, who plays Arbie, the main character of the film, stated, “They are incredible actually…with as little of a budget as they had, of what they were able to come up with.”

Allyson Sereboff, who plays Micki in “Poultrygeist,” details how actors worked with the effects crew of the motion picture, “When you’re working on a low-budget film or whatever it is and you don’t have like CGI and all these special, crazy effects, people worked really hard to make and put stuff together with what they had to make it happen, I mean it was amazing,” said Sereboff. “Then we would get trained to work with them and it was frustrating. If it fails you got to do it again, but then you have to make it again because you already used it.”

Cast and crew often performed multiple roles during the production of “Poultrygeist,” as Yachanin went on to explain how cast members did various stunt work, “We did a lot of combat training…stage combat and stuff like that, so we’re all doing our own fighting…we had a day where we were taught how to shoot guns,” but also described the safety given in this last case, “they had policemen there, they had actual people who were trained on how to do it…they were very careful about it and very safe.”

The close ties experienced during filming no doubt contributed to Lloyd Kaufman’s frame of mind when he said of the production, “‘Poultrygeist’ was the best, [and] absolutely enjoyable every second of the time, great people, [and] everything was perfect.”

Though not officially released as of yet, more details can be found regarding the film at www.poultrygeistmovie.com.